Topbar Social Icons

Search

Duck Duck Goose with Target Foreign Language Vocabulary

THE WEATHER CONTINUES TO WARM here in Maine, and this always makes me want to get my students outside- and they want out, too! With my Kindergartners, I like to keep things simple, so this week I decided to go with a version of 'Duck, Duck, Goose' which incorporates vocabulary we are currently focusing on- in this case, fruits from our Picnic theme and the verb 'quiero'.

HERE'S HOW WE DID IT, all in the target language:

MATERIALS:
*Plastic fruits and cheese (you can choose whatever vocabulary set you want to practice)

INTRODUCING THE GAME:
*Once outside, I had the class sit in a circle and put the plastic food in the center. I then chose one student to stand up. Here is my "script" from that point on, with a focus on practicing one of our key words 'quiero':

(yo) -No olvides 'quiero'. (we put a fist over our heart as an action for this key word)

(alumno) -Quiero ______.

(yo) -y.... ¡uno más!

(alumno) -y ____.

(yo) -Ok, ¡vamos a jugar!

AT THIS POINT, I hand the two foods to the student- this helps him/her remember the words they will be using. Note: I haven't even told them what we are playing yet! (it becomes obvious once we start playing)
NOW I GUIDE THE STUDENT around the circle, gently encouraging the student to tap each sitting kiddo's head and while I say one of the foods, until we get about 2/3 of the way around the circle, then I say the second food and tell them both '¡Corre Max!' '¡Corre Molly!' and make a running motion. By this point, the class has typically figured out what we are playing and they are off, running around the circle until either the tapping student has been tagged or has sat down in the space emptied by the tapped kiddo. (I did have one class who went through the motions of the game for an entire class period but the lightbulb never fully went off as to what we were playing...I am guessing many kiddos in that class have never played in English so it wasn't familiar, but that didn't really hinder our game, so am ok with it.)

ADD '¡Más rápido!' while they are running and ¡Bravo! when someone is tagged or gets to the space without being tagged and you've got yourself an easy game all in Spanish!

THE GAME CONTINUES as the tagged kiddo now gets a turn to choose two foods- I go through the same 'script' as above each time a new kiddo gets a turn.